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Introduction to Linux - A Hands on Guide

This guide was created as an overview of the Linux Operating System, geared toward new users as an exploration tour and getting started guide, with exercises at the end of each chapter.
For more advanced trainees it can be a desktop reference, and a collection of the base knowledge needed to proceed with system and network administration. This book contains many real life examples derived from the author's experience as a Linux system and network administrator, trainer and consultant. They hope these examples will help you to get a better understanding of the Linux system and that you feel encouraged to try out things on your own.

So I'm basically a noob, and I'm having troubles with logging into KDE. I installed the stable distribution of Debian using the first full CD to boot, and then a http mirror to complete the install. My troubles began when I noticed that for some reason the desktop acted strange when I changed font sizes. Some applications would respond immediately, but others wouldn't respond at all. I consulted a friend who has been using Linux for a couple years, and together we managed to discover that apparently in the default installation of a Desktop Environment, Debian defaults to GNOME, and running KDE instead just sort of lays a KDE front-end onto a GNOME back-end. This seems to be the reason for the funny font behavior, because as soon as I opened the font manager in the GNOME control center, all the fonts immediately changed to reflect my changes in the KDE control center. I decided that the best way to resolve this situation would be to run KDE as a stand-alone desktop environment. To this end, I used 'apt-get install kdm', and then changed the default desktop environment to kdm using the file '/etc/X11/default-display-manager'. I restarted the system, and it took me to the KDE login screen. I logged in like normal, but instead of opening my desktop, the screen went black and then returned to the login screen. With the help of my friend, I forced GNOME to load again (which worked fine), and looked at the kdm log (the file '/var/log/kdm.log') and was somewhat surprised to find no errors what-so-ever. This is the body of what was there:

At this point we tried to handle those warnings about the fonts, but we didn't manage to fix anything, and the behavior remains the same. I now have no idea how to proceed. I like KDE more than GNOME, but I don't want to keep running into small conflicts it's having with the GNOME underpinnings. Any help would be much appreciated.

I believe this is a conflict between gdm and kdm. In your first post, you said that KDE is a frontend to gnome, do you mean that you are running two X? If this is the case, try exiting GNOME and see if KDE becomes more stable.

I believe this is a conflict between gdm and kdm. In your first post, you said that KDE is a frontend to gnome, do you mean that you are running two X? If this is the case, try exiting GNOME and see if KDE becomes more stable.

When I say that KDE is a front-end to GNOME, I mean that I looked at the running processes and kdm was no-where to be found. gdm, however, was running, along with a bunch of other programs that I had always previously assumed were kdm specific (i.e. the program names started with the letter k). This also means that I didn't have a complete installation of kdm initially. I tried terminating gdm and running kdm when I first discovered the problem and it wouldn't even initialize. That's when I used apt-get to install kdm. Then I ran into the problem I originally described.

As stated Debian installs Gnome. I found the easiest way to get KDE to work was to just use apt-get to uninstall Gnome first then install KDE but I'm an always-newbie in Linux so your mileage may vary.

I tried what some of you suggested and un-installed gdm. It had no effect that I could tell. I was a little frightened that re-installing gdm would introduce the same behavior into gdm, but it worked just as it did before. I did discover something else interesting, however. After a quick google search, I found a few references to similar login issues, and many of them seemed to mention the file '/var/run/kdm.pid'. I have no idea what that file is supposed to do, but I tried to look at it (out of pure curiosity), and discovered that there is no file of that name in the /var/run directory. Could this be the issue?

Have you tried starting up kde without using any graphical loader (kdm or gdm)?. When you are at the login screen switch to a terminal by pressing ctrl+alt+f1. Login as root and telinit 3 to close all the graphical stuff (though I'm not sure debian uses runlevel 3 as non graphical mode). If that doesn't work (if it opens up the graphical loader again) just kill the X server (killall Xorg if you're running Xorg otherwise kill XFree86). Then exit root and login as normal user and type "startx".